Roy Choudhury’s savagely ironic allegory of
rural politics in Orissa. The villagers of
Mankonal, surrounded by rapidly depleting
stone quarries, are offered Rs 100 for every
vote they give the local Zamindar who is
contesting a State election. Villagers Bharasa
and Laxmi, desperately in need of extra money,
‘adopt’ a terminally ill beggar and attempt to
keep him alive until the election so that his
vote may fetch them the extra money they
require for their son’s marriage. The old man’s
condition deteriorates and they have to carry
him through the quarries to hospital. On the
way, they blunder onto a dynamite blast which
blows the old man to bits. The film
demonstrates an exemplary control over its
narrative as quarry explosions rend the air,
throwing up continuous clouds of acrid dust,
and picture cut-outs of the politician-landlord
weave through the lives of the villagers like
grotesquely surreal comments both on the
bizarre situation as well as on the forms of
realism usually deployed by Indian film for
these themes. The film was briefly denied a
censorship certificate, apparently because of an
unintended physical resemblance between its
fictional politician and the then-Information &
Broadcasting Minister.